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Billboard, Protest Urge End of Lethal Pig Use in Trauma Training

A bloody scalpel points to the words “Baystate Medical Center: Animal Cruelty Doesn’t Save Lives.” This PCRM billboard alerted Massachusetts drivers last month that Baystate should end the unnecessary use of live pigs in its trauma training program.

At a related PCRM demonstration at Baystate, doctors also presented a petition signed by Massachusetts physicians and residents urging a move to nonanimal methods.

“Cutting into living animals is a substandard way to teach emergency procedures that will be performed on humans,” says Massachusetts physician Marge Peppercorn, M.D. “These facilities should use state-of-the-art, human-centered methods for all trauma courses.”

Trauma training at Baystate Medical Center involves cutting into live pigs to practice emergency medical procedures. After the training session, the animals are killed. Although the animals are anesthetized during the procedures, they are subjected to the trauma of confinement, shipping, preparation, and manipulation.

Baystate already operates an American College of Surgeons-accredited medical simulation center and owns the simulator needed to replace animals in the trauma training program.

Ninety-eight percent of U.S. and Canadian facilities providing trauma training exclusively use nonanimal education methods.